Exhibiting the Holocaust - Brandeis Institutional Repository ...

Speaking to a war-tired America, Truman states “[European Jews], too, are victims.”Truman painfully comes to the realization of a suffering European Jewry, yetexplains that “they,” like Americans, need justice. The guilty, which the museumcalls “the Killers,” must be brought to trial in order to “satisfy” all of the “needs ofthese sufferers.” Here, the museum discusses the Nuremberg War Crime Trials andthe subsequent verdicts. Finally, the museum presents a relatively modest“Bystanders” panel that includes three paragraphs with no artifacts or pictures hungon a blank wall. Bystanders within this panel are defined as the “majority ofEuropeans,” not a world that watched and most assuredly not America. 85 It seemsgeographic requirements are necessary in order to indict a party as a “bystander.”Yet, as a visitor can clearly see throughout the permanent and temporary exhibits,those geographic requirements disappear as technology and universal morality turnevery individual into a witness.Many of the museum’s artifacts, texts, and images prompt endless,uninterrupted fear. Yet, an audience arrives at the museum with some level offoresight towards an end to World War II and to the Holocaust. In that knowledgewhich is continuously reinforced in the permanent exhibition through nationalpride (flags, medals, and emblems), location (windows that overlook theWashington monument), and narrative (American), an audience knows of animminent American victory. On one of my research trips to the museum, Iencountered a young college-aged woman and her friends that helped demonstrate85 U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Permanent Exhibit. The original title which can be faintly seen fromthe faded sticker residue above the words “Bystanders” reads “The Guilt of Bystanders.” Why “The Guiltof” was removed might be insignificant or it could have been a very political process.32